Food: Hypersensitive; Hyposensitive or somewhere in the middle?

I've had several food related discussions recently with a few autistic friends of mine, both on and off the forum and I can't help but be intrigued by how autism affects our taste in food. I have a couple of friends who are very hypersensitive to a lot of different tastes and textures and can only eat very bland tasting food of certain specific consistencies and yet there are other friends and also myself that seem to like lots of strong tastes; spices, etc. Food seems to be important to autistic people in one way or another! So I wondered where everyone else is with food. Do you prefer strong tastes and flavours or do you have a lot of food sensitivities that limit what you can eat? I'd like to know other people's opinions and thoughts on this?

Parents
  • My food habits are many.  I consider them relatively sensible.  Unlike my late mother who was inflexible and absolute in her belief in what was the correct way to cook and what she/we as a family were allowed to eat.

    My habits:

    • Crisps, I'm an addict,  as a child I was salt and vinegar. Now I can't stand the flavour. Now it's cheese and onion and beef and onion.  I love seebrook ribbed crisps.
    • Curries and chicken tikka.  I'm almost an addict. First one at university was the best.  Others have been a let down, it's like chasing the dragon, never getting the same high again.  Gradually I've gone for hotter flavours, madras, jalfrezi, vindaloo.  Although the very very hot latest ones are too much and they burn my mouth.
    • Tea,  I'm very particular and only drink selective brands.  Others taste like dishwater . So I only drink tea at home. When I'm out somewhere I always choose coffee because I can drink any coffee.(except the very very strong Turkish coffee which is like treacle).
    • I love chicken, pork, cod, haddock I can tolerate beef and lamb,  I hate prawns, salmon, liver and kidneys.
    • I usually eat alone.
    • I hate watching other people eat.  It makes me feel sick.

    Perhaps I should later describe my mother's habits and how it affected my life.

Reply
  • My food habits are many.  I consider them relatively sensible.  Unlike my late mother who was inflexible and absolute in her belief in what was the correct way to cook and what she/we as a family were allowed to eat.

    My habits:

    • Crisps, I'm an addict,  as a child I was salt and vinegar. Now I can't stand the flavour. Now it's cheese and onion and beef and onion.  I love seebrook ribbed crisps.
    • Curries and chicken tikka.  I'm almost an addict. First one at university was the best.  Others have been a let down, it's like chasing the dragon, never getting the same high again.  Gradually I've gone for hotter flavours, madras, jalfrezi, vindaloo.  Although the very very hot latest ones are too much and they burn my mouth.
    • Tea,  I'm very particular and only drink selective brands.  Others taste like dishwater . So I only drink tea at home. When I'm out somewhere I always choose coffee because I can drink any coffee.(except the very very strong Turkish coffee which is like treacle).
    • I love chicken, pork, cod, haddock I can tolerate beef and lamb,  I hate prawns, salmon, liver and kidneys.
    • I usually eat alone.
    • I hate watching other people eat.  It makes me feel sick.

    Perhaps I should later describe my mother's habits and how it affected my life.

Children
  • My mother was a terrible cook! She had set meals for every day of the week and she cooked them all badly! If anything she taught me how not to cook! I taught myself to cook from scratch with the use of a few good cookbooks that I purchased when I moved out of home aged 18.

    Crisps are good, though I've been doing the whole 'clean eating' thing since before Christmas so no crisps at the moment But when I do eat crisps my favourites are prawn cocktail crisps or chilli heatwave doritos, nice and spicy niknaks are good too! I eat spicy food more for the flavour than for heat, I'm just getting into a Moroccan Tagine phase at the moment! I only drink herbal tea. Ginger, lemon and manuka honey is my current favourite, I like the kick from the ginger. Coffee is good, the stronger the better, I like Turkish coffee too. I'll eat most meat and fish/seafood but not liver and I'm not keen on kidneys either, any entrails basically! I rarely eat on my own because I have children. I hate watching my 5 year old daughter eat as she eats with her mouth open, I'm trying to train her out of it but that just makes it funnier for her to do it just to wind me up, kids!

    Please do describe your late mother's habits and how it affected your life, it would be interesting to read about.